The present invention relates to a raster scanning system and, more particularly, to a dual infrared beam, double pass raster scanning system with overfilled rotating polygon mirror facets, only cylindrical scan optical elements and independently moveable lenses.
Many prior art raster output scanners (ROS) utilize a rotating polygon having flat reflective surfaces, or facets, in parallel with the axis of rotation of the polygon. In a typical system, a beam is emitted from a coherent light source such as a diode laser. The light is directed through a pre-polygon conditioning optics, modulated according to an input signal, onto the rotating polygon surfaces. The high speed rotation of the polygon, typically in 3 to 15 krpm range, then scans the beam through a post-polygon conditioning lens and images the laser spot across the full process width of a photosensitive image plane.
In these prior art ROS systems, the pre-polygon conditioning optics typically are incorporated in an underfilled facet design; e.g. the light beam directed against the rotating polygon illuminates only a portion of each rotating facet.
In overfilled facet designs, the light beam completely illuminates each facet and a small portion of adjacent facets. In an overfilled design the requirement for facet size required to produce a given spot size at the image medium is greatly reduced allowing many more facets to be accommodated on the same diameter polygon. This, in turn, permits the scan system to form more scan lines per second with a given polygon motor, or, alternatively, to permit the use of less powerful and less expensive polygon motor drives. The overfilled design has several disadvantages. The throughput efficiency is relatively low (20%), compared to the 50% efficiency of the underfilled design, and the illumination of the imaging facet is not as uniform as the underfilled design. In order to tolerate the low efficiency, a higher powered laser diode is required.
It is well known in the scanning art to use laser diodes to generate a coherent laser beam which is optically shaped and used to scan in a ROS system. It is also known to use multiple laser diodes to create multiple beams, each individual beam independently modulated by video signals, and the multiple beams scanned onto the recording surface as modulated beams. For these multiple beam applications, it has been found advantageous to use arrays of closely spaced laser diodes. Closely spaced diodes allow for multiple beam processing and thus improve data throughput as compared with systems that employ continuous wave, single beam gas or laser diodes. Typically, the laser diodes in a multiple beam system are individually addressable with a separate current source that drives or modulates the diode.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a dual infrared beam, double pass raster scanning system with overfilled rotating polygon mirror facets and only cylindrical scan optical elements